To My Daughter
by ChasingRainbows90
Summary: A new father writes a letter to his newly born daughter.


**I've been really struggling recently to actually write anything - or to actually finish anything I've started so I have quite a few half written / nearly completed bits of fics ( parts of ones already posted, oneshots, multi parters). This is quite a random idea I think and I'm not actually sure if its a one shot or not :-/ I'm also not entirely sure that I have the voice right or that it fits - so I hope that it is ok. Major thank you to MirrorSparkles1234 who has been reading bits of this and helping me out loads :-) **

To my daughter,

How strange it is to call you that, to say that I have a daughter. Though I have grown accustomed to the idea of you, it is still quite an unusual feeling now that you are physically here and not just a bump at your mother's abdomen.

Not that you really have much presence yet, you do not really have an identity beyond that of Baby Girl or Daughter Of. You have nothing to make you unique yet. So many other babies on this floor share those statements with you, those pieces of themselves. Yet you are the baby that the midwife returned to us after your checks. You are the baby they say belongs to us. Our daughter.

Soon though you will be more than that. You will be more than this scrawny wrinkled creature with the wide alert eyes and the tufts of dark hair across your slightly misshapen – but physiologically fine – scalp. You will have a name and as you grow you will develop a personality all of your own. You will become a person capable of so much and not a creature who lies dependent in the cot before me unable to do much more than suckle and cry.

I'll be honest that I know little of what to do for you. You cannot suckle at my breast so I cannot nourish you. So many of your needs I cannot meet. So you lie there, wide eyes fixed on me though I doubt that you see all that much while I sit and write.

I hope that you do not grow unsettled as we wait for your mother to return. She has been whisked away from us for her bath though she had begged to have more time with you. I don't quite understand why. You won't have changed in the time she is gone and she is unlikely to miss anything of importance. You have done so little in your two hours of life – though that seems common of the human infant – I am certain she could bathe for many hours – perhaps days – to still return and find you exactly as you are now. Other creatures within the animal kingdom are so much more capable in these early hours and yet we humans are so very defenceless. If you were the young of another animal, then there would be so much your mother would miss by leaving you but you are undeniably human. Besides which I am certain the bath will do your mother good after all the work she put in bringing you in to this world.

I wonder do you even know who we are. Could the midwives have switched you accidently with another baby girl and that you are in fact not the baby who grew within my wife? Would you as the baby know that this is not right, that the person talking to you and holding you is not the person you should rightfully be with and would you protest at this or would you simply allow your needs to be met because these people seemed to be doing so satisfactorily? You certainly seem content enough and I am certain there is research saying that a baby knows but how can such a thing be proven?

Should it be, perhaps, that I know instinctively that you are my daughter? That you sense it from me. My wife, your mother, she told me of what fathers – I don't know how I feel to call myself a father – feel when their baby is born but I am not certain I experienced it as she said. I look at you, lying there, and I wonder should I feel something inside of me that tells me that you are mine, that within your tiny body are pieces that came from me.

Maybe I shouldn't tell you this. These are the things I am certain we are not meant to talk about but instead ignore and act as though we feel the same as those fathers we are told about. But I look at you and I don't know how I am supposed to do that. There's no manual for this, no textbook to guide me.

I knew from the moment I met your mother that her dream was to raise a family. She was as committed to her work as I am, but she adopts those around her to form this mad little family with her at the centre. Part of me had hoped that she would be content with that, and that our ever growing collection of godchildren but deep down I always knew she would want more.

She waited though. She's waited until she thought that I was settled enough even though I knew with each passing month she was hearing the tick of biology's clock all the more keenly. I made things harder for her. Always striving to achieve something new, wanting something more and she was always there supporting me and spurring me on. She always knew what I needed and yet I chose to ignore the thing she needed the most.

But we did settled. We have good jobs here, good lives and as she tells me often enough challenges to keep my feet from itching too badly. It isn't what I want for the rest of my life and she knows that but for now it's right. Of course I knew that our lives as we were leading them also wasn't what she wanted for the rest of her life either but I think I tried to convince myself otherwise and if she's honest I think she tried to convince herself too.

I don't know if she planned you. Maybe it was a subconscious thing – not that it really matters. You are here now.

I've had nearly seven and a half months since I discovered your existence. Your mother has the benefit of having had an extra week of adjustment though I fear those days were not all that enjoyable for her. I think she was fearful of telling me, of how I'd react. I think deep down I knew. I could have made it easy for her and relieved that stress with a few simple words. But I waited. I waited for her to force my head from the sand with the revelation of my fate. I watched her pale, worn face – though it was adjourned with one of the most genuine smiles I had seen on her face since our wedding day – slowly fall as I failed to show the exuberating she craved. Instead I pulled her against me so I couldn't see that expression on her face and to stop her seeing mine. I whispered in to her hair and held her tight against me, knowing you were already putting a distance between us even though her body had not yet changed.

She tried to keep things the same and not to pressure me too much though at the time it felt so very different. When in those early weeks, you made her sick, she would try to hide it. At work she wouldn't let our colleagues contact me even when she could barely stomach anything to the point that it caused her blood sugar levels to plummet. Even then when she would have needed me, she kept quiet.

The worst night in those early weeks was the one before what should have been the biggest operation of my career to date; one where those in the top jobs would have been observing me. She tried so hard not to give in to the sickness, before she escaped outside where I wouldn't be kept awake by her despite how cold the night was. But she returned to curl up with me with me, thinking that it had passed only for her to be caught unaware not to long after. She barely had the time to make it to the bathroom, and as I pulled her hair from her face, she had dissolved in to tears. Between bouts of retching, she had apologised to me and tried to convince me to return to our room, to sleep. Even then she had still thought of me over herself despite how very ill she seemed to me. Leaving her though was not an option. I sat with her on that cold bathroom floor, for the whole of that night. It scared me how much she was going through, and how willing she was to go it alone. I still went in to work that day but one look at my face was enough to convince them that I wasn't to step foot in to an operating theatre – and once more my beautiful wife had blamed herself.

You probably think that I am a rather selfish man. It is probably a truthful assessment. My work is very much my life. Though I cannot say enough how much I love my wife. So early on in our marriage, she learnt that I am very much a bigamist – married to the job just as much as I am married to her. But we had a good life together. I don't think I could have got as far as I have without her by my side and I cannot imagine how I would cope going forward without her. I'm not entirely sure she'd say the same about me, because she is so much more independent. But in her way, she needs me as much as I need her.

I don't think I really accepted you were coming for a long time. I went to that first scan with my wife – and even then it didn't seem quite real. I have seen so many scans – searching for abnormalities and anomalies within the image and as I gazed at that screen as the images from within her abdomen filled with screen, I found myself searching for those things and not filled with wonder that you were growing there. We watched as your heart flickered proving that you were very much alive, and I saw the way her eyes started to sparkle as she realised her dream was finally becoming a reality. I forced a smile on to my face as she turned to look at me, not wanting to see her face disappointed.

In truth it was weeks later that I realised. I was doing a ward round, frustrated by the lack of anything truly testing on the horizon. I wanted something that was going to set my pulse racing, that would flood my system with adrenaline. What I didn't want was for that feeling to come because I heard my wife's scream fill the ward. It was a scream like I had never heard before, and yet I knew without a doubt it was her from the first millisecond.

Seeing her on the floor, the look of terror in her eyes and her arms wrapped around her barely there bump, I felt my heart launch itself in to my throat. But more than that, it was hearing her plead with our friends for her baby to be ok, but even more than that for them not to get me. I don't think I have ever moved quicker and yet I completely froze. I froze as I listened to her desperate words. And then she turned her head slightly and out of the corner of her eyes she must have caught sight of me.

I don't quite understand how that moment changed things. Perhaps it was then that I felt that I could do something. She had needed me before, but I couldn't do anything bar sit with her or pull back her hair. I am not one to sit on my hands, and watch, or wait. I am the one there to fix things, to work at the puzzle until a solution has been found. I came to her side, and I could take control. I could order those around me. But I saw it in her eyes. What I was doing was not what she wanted – she didn't want to be my patient, she wanted me to be her husband. But it is hard to separate the man from the physician.

I'm not sure how I can learn to do that. I don't know how to pull apart these aspects of myself so that I can be her husband – and a father – in our home but the doctor, the surgeon here because I don't know how to marry them together to pull them off simultaneously. As I sat with her that day faced with losing you, I realised how much she already loved you. Even though you were miniscule, incapable of life in this world outside of her, draining her of her energy and taking what you needed before her own needs could be met, still she loved you. I wish I could say from that moment I felt it too, but I have sworn I will not lie to you. I will not keep things from you because it will protect you because that view is naïve. It will only serve to cause distrust later.

We didn't lose you though. You continued to grow within my wife's abdomen, changing the shape of her body as you started to require more space. You would move, kicking against the walls of her uterus or rolling and wriggling about. She would giggle as you'd time and again kick a bar of soap from her abdomen as she bathed, neither of you tiring of this game though I would drift off thinking of other things. She would pull my hand to her shiny stretched skin to feel your kicks, and laugh all the more when you'd kick out harder against me. She would tell me that already you were a daddy's girl – so convinced was my wife that you were female – that you reacted when you heard my voice, or if you were restless would settle. I would nod in response, smile sometimes because I knew that was what she wanted – all the time wondering if this was it. She would tell me what her books said about the fathers, and relate it to me, and again I would agree because why should I hurt my wife when you were doing a good enough job of that with her aching spine and inability to get comfortable.

How could I tell her that I didn't know what I was feeling though it certainly wasn't what her books described? As time passes it grows harder, the longer you go on pretending the more impossible it is to admit that all of what has happened has been a lie. Oh there have been moments, moments when I have felt something that has seemed genuine like the day we went shopping for the things you would need and I found myself without thought pulling a soft toy down from the shelf and stating I would buy it for you separate from these other things we were choosing together. That toy now sits at the top of your cot, near to your head though I doubt you are aware of its presence, let alone know that it is yours. But your mother had smiled when I had done that, eyes once more moist with unshed tears. In the months of her pregnancy, you seemed to make her so much more emotional than the woman I had known for so many years. So many things could cause tears to spring in to her beautiful eyes – sometimes it happened for no reason at all.

But these moments. Those real moments when I seemed to connect to this new being that was my wife with child seemed to be so brief and fleeting. When she left work for her maternity leave, it seemed all the harder. It made the distance between us seem all the more because no longer could I watch her work, smiling as she seemed more like herself in that environment though those around her tried to treat her differently. At work, she was more the wife I knew. After she left, I would return home each night, to find her waiting for me. She would listen to me talk of my day though quickly she would interrupt to tell me of what she – and you – had been doing before questioning me on the state of her extended work family. She would change things. Each day I would return home to find something different. She would smile and tell me she was nesting, readying our home for the arrival of our daughter. I would find her paint splattered because suddenly a room was the wrong shade and she'd just had to alter it, but always she wore that smile.

Even 28 hours ago, when finally you made it clear that you were on your way she wore that smile. You had been playing us for days, teasing your mother with contractions and the excitement that soon she would be meeting you. She would call me from work, slightly breathless from whatever she was doing to tell me it was starting, and to be ready. I would find myself antsy as I waited for another phone call, the one to tell me that it was real this time. I wasn't ready though your mother was. And then you would call a halt to the proceedings anyway.

In truth there was no need for a phone call. Although it has become apparent you need to be taught the art of timing. Your mother's contractions started within fifteen minutes of me arriving home from one of the busiest shifts I have known in some time. A day in which it seemed every patient on the ward had some sort of emergency even those who we had earmarked for discharge so while I had survived my shift on adrenaline, by the time I stepped through the door I was crashing down. And there was my wife starting to breathe through pains which she said felt different from before.

It took 24 hours from that point for you to finally take your first gasping breathe, and to make that scream that announced to the world that you had arrived. I had to miss operating on one of the most unique cases that has passed through our doors, one which had attracted a great deal of attention and for which I would have received a great deal of acclaim. I had to miss that to potentially have my career destroyed by 24 hours of my wife crushing the bones in my hand with increasing intensity. I watched as my wife sank in to herself, as her entire mind and body became focused on bringing you in to this world. She went from talking with me between the contractions, to making noises I've never heard another human make. With each second, I waited for the call to section, for something to happen and go wrong because this women on the bed was acting so strangely and nothing really seemed to be progressing – and yet the midwife in the room barely seemed to bat an eyelid. She was silent for the most part, glaring at me when I dared try to talk to my wife or to question what was happening and why it was going to so slowly.

And then you were there, placed screaming on to my wife's chest as she gazed down at you. Despite how exhausted she must have felt, how much she had given to deliver you, she smiled that smile once more and whispered how beautiful you were. I can't quite see it even now. You are less red and angry, but I cannot describe you as beautiful. You look much the same as every other normal neonate I have ever seen. Your mother tells me you resemble me, though I hope you are not burdened with that. Certainly it would hinder the beauty she says she sees in you.

I would rather you were like your mother. Then you would be beautiful. A miniature version of my wife would be quite a thing to see though I am not certain the world would be ready for two of her – though it would certainly be blessed to have it. But can I describe myself as blessed to have you and the potential for that?

Maybe as you grow things will change, as you develop in to a person. Right now you are still watching me with wide eyes, you make little noises that mean nothing to me though I am sure your mother will tell me it is your attempts at conversation. Occasionally you move, trying to free yourself from the swaddle the midwives have wrapped you in. As you find your attempts thwarted, you grimace slightly and all I can hope is that your frustration – if that's what it is – doesn't lead to you crying.

If you cry, it means I have to act and I don't quite know what I am expected to do. You are two hours old, and I have not yet held you. I'm not even sure I know how. You are this tiny creature, and if anything were to happen to you, I don't know how your mother would cope. Yet if I were to leave you crying in the cot, she would scold me for that too. "A baby needs love," is something she has repeated to me often as she has placed my hand against her bump, "She needs to know she is loved."

Perhaps you are cute, in your own way though. That little sneeze you did a second ago and the confused look that passed over your face after it happened was something I am sure your mother would have melted at and there was something about it. Maybe you will not be so bad, which I suppose is a good thing because babies don't come with a refund or exchange policy.

I suppose little girl, we will have to find our own way. I don't know how to do the things your mother has read out to me. They are not instructions, but statements of how things should be. They do not tell me how to get there. We shall have to work at it, you and me. Your mother seems to have it instinctively – and you are lucky to have her. Just as I am lucky to call her my wife. But I don't seem to have that. So we will have to find our own path. And now your sniffling is increasing slightly.

Ah but I am saved by the opening of the door and your mother being pushed back in. She is beaming now as she looks at me, eyes sparkling. She opens her mouth, and speaks rapidly. So quick that at first I do not catch her words, before finally she sees my confusion and slows down to a pace that is actually comprehensible to human ears.

She is waiting for a response from me, but I do not quite know what to say. Instead I look from her face back to you. My lips twist upwards, as I turn my head back to look at my wife.

I nod my head, and watch as that impossibly large smile seems to widen all the more. Indignantly she forces the wheelchair closer to the cot, to me rather than being made to get back up on to the bed as per the midwife's wishes.

She scoops you in to her arms, settling you against her. You squirm all the more now you are close to her, trying to position yourself. Maybe you are not so incapable after all.

I watch the two of you. My wife. My daughter. My family.

To my daughter, my Zosia.

From

Your Father


End file.
